Delphine Ryan

Shortlisted in the Special Award category of the Women in Defence UK Awards 2016 and featured in various newspapers and publications including The Telegraph and the Huffington Post.

Aeronautical engineering was Delphine’s childhood ambition, but she thought she missed her chance by the time she reached her mid-30s. She spent around 12 years homeschooling her children and holding down part-time jobs at the same time.

However, at 33 years old and with no secondary school certificates she took the plunge, enrolled on an Access to Higher Education course and a Bachelor’s degree programme and went on to get a first in aircraft maintenance engineering from the Manchester Metropolitan University. She worked with the Flybe engineering team at Manchester airport during her studies and graduated in 2013. Shortly after, she secured a place on the sought-after Ministry of Defence’s Defence Engineering & Science Group graduate scheme and spent the next four years working in Defence Equipment & Support on a variety of aviation-related projects including secondments to Thomas Cook Airlines and the UK Military Aviation Authority.

Once she was granted the status of Incorporated Engineer by the Engineering Council, she founded her own aviation training consultancy Aerolegis to continue working on her real passion which is the successful training and making of engineers as well as getting others to succeed in engineering or STEM careers regardless of age or gender. She feels that her life experiences and raising her children before she took on this role gave her invaluable strength to achieve what she has and wants to encourage as many people to pursue their ambitions and succeed. She firmly believes it is never too late for anyone, regardless of their age, to learn something new and succeed.